Abstract
Novice drivers are statistically over-represented in reported road crashes, with recent evidence suggesting that some of this increased crash involvement may be a result of limitations in their cognitive processing. Such processing has typically been measured by recording drivers’ patterns of eye movements, however, the exact ways in which eye movements are reported and interpreted varies substantially between different studies in the literature. Therefore, the objective of this systematic review was to investigate whether novice drivers and experienced drivers do differ in clear and reproducible ways in their visual search.Studies were identified through searches of Web of Science, Medline, TRID Database, and the TRB Research in Progress Database, with no restrictions on publication status. Studies were included if they compared the visual search of a novice driver group (<3 years driving experience) and an experienced driver group (>3 years driving experience) using an eye tracking method and reported at least one of the following four visual search outcomes: fixation durations, horizontal spread of search, vertical spread of search and number of fixations. Two reviewers independently screened searches and assessed the full texts of potentially included studies.Of the 235 studies initially identified 18 were included in the review, with 13 studies reporting sufficient data to be included in the meta-analysis for at least one outcome measure. Given that the included studies deployed a range of method types, additional sub-group analyses were conducted using this factor. Sensitivity analyses were also conducted by temporarily removing extreme experience groups (e.g. driving instructors and learner drivers) in order to test the effect of different levels of experience and training.The meta-analyses, along with support from results discussed narratively, revealed that novice drivers have a narrower horizontal spread of search compared to experienced drivers, however, there were no overall differences in fixation durations, vertical spread of search or number of fixations when the studies were pooled together. These findings have important primary implications for the development of novice training interventions, with novice drivers needing to develop a broader horizontal spread of visual search, but not to necessarily learn to fixate further down the road. Subgroup analyses also provided considerations for future research studies in terms of the experience of the driver groups, and the method type used.
Highlights
The search strategy found 18 papers fitting the inclusion criteria. These studies included 320 experienced drivers with driving experience ranging from 5 years to 34 years, and 318 novice drivers with driving experience ranging from 0 years to 3 years
While it was clear that there was a difference in drivers’ horizontal spread of search, with novice drivers having a narrower horizontal spread of search compared to experienced drivers, there were no reliable differences found in fixation durations, vertical spread of search and number of fixations
The pooling of studies in this systematic review provides reliable conclusions regarding the difference between novice drivers’ and experienced drivers’ visual search, with novice drivers displaying a narrower spread of horizontal search compared to more experienced drivers, suggesting that novice drivers do not anticipate and scan for potential hazards to either side of them
Summary
This systematic review and meta-analysis have been undertaken to investigate whether driving experience relates to drivers’ general visual search, by comparing novice drivers’ and experienced drivers’ fixation durations, spread of search (horizontal spread of search and vertical spread of search) and number of fixations over the driving scene. Given that studies investigating this topic have deployed a variety of method types, additional sub-group analyses will be conducted by categorising the included studies by method type (simple methodology or immersive methodology). Only studies that reported at least one of these four measures over the whole driving scene, and not in areas of specific interest were included These general visual search measures were chosen as outcomes measures as they are less sensitive to heterogeneity in the methods and tasks used as opposed to capturing the sequences of fixations for hazard anticipation
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